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Hosam El Sokkari, Head of BBC Arabic, was keen to stress that the numerous foreign Arabic-language news stations have greatly differing motives.

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Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, was in attendance at the event.

The Arab Media Forum, which was staged in Dubai last month, featured senior representatives from print, online and TV who debated a range of issues from finance to foreign news channels. Digital Broadcast reviews the highlights.

It is easy to forget that long before the current economic slowdown, the media was already facing its own challenges internationally. The Middle East was coming to terms with the effects of the proliferation of broadband and advertising revenues were being fragmented by the growing number of FTA channels battling widespread piracy of packaged media and pay TV.

These problems remain pertinent for the Middle East media with the financial situation adding new constraints on how the industry can respond.

Although the eighth edition of the Arab Media Forum was based around the theme "weathering a period of change and crisis", the issues up for discussion ranged beyond the downturn.

"The problems in the media started long before the so-called global financial crisis that we see today," says Abdul Hamid Ahmad, editor-in-chief of UAE daily Gulf News.

Ahmad points out that while content remains of upmost importance for publishers, they must also reconsider the changing consumption habits of their readers.

"We are now presented with the Google generation and it is important that we are ready to serve them," he adds.

Print media organisations are not alone in this testing period of transition.

"There are huge challenges facing us," says Mazen Hayek, director of marketing at FTA giant MBC.

"There is a common misconception in this region that advertising is an expenditure, rather than an investment that produces a return. We have to do something to change that," adds Hayek.

In addition to the challenging advertising market, broadcasters are under pressure to continue investing in technology to keep pace with their audiences.

"We have the content and we have the technology but we need a clear idea of how the viewer will want to consume video over the course of the next ten years," claims Hayek.

New media platforms were the focus of attention for many at the forum with representatives from Google, Zawya and Al Arabiya.net offering their wisdom to the audience.

"Providing content is still the foundation of the media regardless of whether that is in print, online or mobile," says Ammar Bakkar, head of new media, MBC.

"New media cannot be ignored and any publisher or broadcaster that ignores it will fail," adds Bakkar.

"It is not enough to simply dump content online direct from your traditional medium. You have to take advantage of the immediacy and interactivity of the internet to make it work. The internet has its own rules and characteristics," he explains.

One of the most significant of these characteristics is user-generated content (UGC), a topic that raises questions of reliability and trust of the media.

"Traditional media[organisations] are not always completely accurate and honest, this problem is not constrained to UGC and blogs," says Ayman Al Sayyad, editor in chief of Egypt's Wajhat Nazr magazine. "There are certain legislations that protect journalists that offer a certain degree of immunity, which do not protect bloggers."

Google's UAE country business manager, Husni Khuffash, acknowledges that online platforms providing a conduit for the UGC have to take some of the responsibility for the content that they host in the same way that a traditional news organisation monitors and verifies its own content.

"We are not a news site. We organise information and provide it any way possible. We still have legal and moral obligations, however," says Khuffash.

When questioned by an audience member about Google's susceptibility to pressure from governments, Khuffash defended his organisation and refuted claims that they had bowed to unreasonable requests from the Chinese government.

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